This is my first audio project, but not my first rodeo. I have taken quite a lot of influence from Gary Marsh (HD-1) and ezkcdude (ezdac). The improvements I aim to make with this project are:

- Improved power supply via low noise LT1963 regulators.
- Volume control is done via balanced programmable gain amplifiers. (Some may debate whether this is better or not.)
- PCB will be 2 layers and therefore cheaper and less of a pain to order in small quantities. (Some may prefer 4 layers for better power and ground layout schemes.)

There are some factors which will probably be considered negative:
- Since I am laying the board out in the free version of Eagle, I only have about 4"x3" and 2 layers to play with, so the transformer will not mount on the PCB... the finished DAC probably won't be quite as svelte as the HD-1.
- You will still have to program the ATmega microcontroller. They are my favorite 8 bitters so I'm sticking with them.

There are a few items that may change or be added:
- IR receiver for remote control. I plan on using this board with a power amp as well, so this would be handy.
- Encoder in place of potentiometer.
- Sub 2 x WM8816 for 2 x PGA2320.

Attached is a preliminary schematic, which I post hoping someone will catch simple mistakes that are surely there. I have not rigorously calculated the proper gains for the various portions of the design, but I will be doing that and finalizing the rest of the schematic over the coming days. Your feedback is welcomed ....

You design a good PCB and offer it as a GB and that might not be enough!

I would not condone it as a commercial venture, but a GB is a GREAT way to finance YOUR own personal parts and materials.

Design a product, come up with a parts list and offer them at a reasonable cost. People WILL buy a good kit priced right. Collect 1/2 to 3/4 of the money up front, order them and ship out kits. In this case it would "only" be 45-46 kits...

Hey, ghetto. Schematics are relatively easy. Designing the board - much harder IMO. Anyway, thanks for the shout out. Good luck with your project. I only have one opinion right now. I don't understand why you think the LT1963 is so great. The ripple rejection is lower than LM317, and I don't think it's less noisy either. However, low dropout has some advantages.